


Wavelengths

by heists (emblems)



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Team Bonding, Team Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-06
Updated: 2014-01-06
Packaged: 2018-01-07 18:58:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1123248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emblems/pseuds/heists
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Psimon gets ahold of the minds of the Team and takes them on a nightmare trip. Each of them are trapped in their own subconscious, tortured by their worst fears and their darkest demons. It’s only with help from each other that they’ll get out with their humanity intact.</p><blockquote>
  <p>"That's what this is, isn't? A manifestation of what keeps me up at night?"</p>
</blockquote>
            </blockquote>





	Wavelengths

**Author's Note:**

> written for the 2013 YJ Christmas Exchange

When Artemis wakes up (was she asleep? where was she, and what was she doing?), the first thing she’s aware of is space.

Not stars-and-moon-and-supernova space, but…  _space_. Elbow room, leg room, entire body lengths and rooms and  _mountains_  of room and space. Artemis will think on it for a long time after the fact and never be completely able to describe it—not fully.

The second thing that hits her is this sound, and it’s almost like the sound of wind rustling leaves and grass, but when she looks around nothing is moving (not the trees, with their black trunks and ever blacker leaves, not the grass that’s like straw, brittle and dull and crunching underneath her). She swears she can only feel it right at the edge of her ears (it doesn’t make sense, she knows, but there’s nothing else she , and if she doesn’t focus on it she almost forgets it’s there at all.

Then she stands up, and something washes over her in such a way she almost falls back to her knees. She gives in to instinct and puts a hand to her chest, as though her heart is out of time or her lungs aren’t functioning properly because something isn’t  _right_. It feels as though something is taking up all the space in her throat, blocking and expanding and  _pressing_. She can’t detect anything out of the ordinary, and that’s almost more concerning because this isn’t run-of-the-mill dizziness—this is what she’s heard Wally’s grandmother call a downright  _spell_.

She takes a minute and wills her mind to clear, as though she can somehow push the sensation away. After a second or two (a minute? an hour?), it fades away like the noise from before (right there at the edges, waiting for her to drop her guard—but it’s okay, she can deal with that, she  _knows_  that), and her shoulders and back loosen up.

 _Deep breath_ , she thinks. With a slightly clearer mind, she starts heading for the treeline, refusing to let the darkness and depth and despair—

She gives herself a mental shake and takes her first step in, taking a cursory look through—

The whisper that’d been lurking at the outskirts becomes a yell and then a  _scream_.

She immediately goes for her bow, but her hand meets empty air, and the adrenaline goes sour in her blood and is washed away by a sudden spike of  _coldpricklingfear_.

Her hand, practically of its own accord, reaches blindingly for the tree, and her fingers start to curl around it before realizing—

Her hand—

The bark—

_Heat, blinding blinding heat._

She rips her hand away, covers her ears, but the voice is _everywhere—_ coming from all around her and from everywhere _within_  her, impossible to block out and utterly inescapable.

From there, she loses sense of everything, and she staggers through the trees—some of them burn, some are searing  _cold_ , but none provide solace, and all the while she  _runs_ , as though the voice will fade if she just gets away, and some part of her tries to find her way back to where she started, but it’s no use, she’s well and truly lost and she feels as though she will truly die here in these trees, listening to these screams and suffering this  _pain—_

She’s not sure how long it went on. She never will be.

But the shrieking was pain— _only_  pain. After a while, as Artemis is starting to lose her sense of  _everything,_ it shifts. The screaming becomes more than a raucous din—it takes shape, assumes a form of its own, and some part of Artemis (the conscious part, the one that hid behind a wall and waited for it all to end) realizes the scream is nothing but an annoyance in comparison to this.

Images of her father and Roy and Batman and Green Arrow flash through her mind’s eye, the words intermingling and dancing around and around her mind like horrible music—

_You’re never going to be a hero._

_—can escape your family?_

_I trusted you—_

_Sportsmaster’s daughter—_

_Bad runs in—_

A circle that winds her up farther and farther—

_You’ll only end up hurting—_

_—your blood._

_Villain._

_—everyone you’ve ever cared about._

She’s losing it, she knows, she can feel it—

_You can’t fight who you are._

_Evil._

_You’re_ nothing _._

She’ll never know if she screamed.

And just when she thinks it’s over, that she’s finally found some level of respite in blessed silence, one last image comes to her.

She looks up—when did she fall?—and sees the team ( _her team, the ones she loves more than anything, the ones that never thought about rejecting her_ ) standing over her.

Everything she’s faced thus far utterly pales in comparison to this—her blood goes more than ice cold, it feels as though it completely ceases to move (0 Kelvin, Wally would say).

She takes in each of their faces in turn.

Conner—Conner, with his permanent scowl, would be someone most people would expect to find without any clear sign of anger. But this goes beyond anger, and while Conner may not wear his heart on his sleeve, Artemis knows exactly where to look. She sees sorrow in the corners of his eyes, disappointment in the set of his jaw and shoulders, and—yes, of course—anger in every piece of him, but it’s a different anger, because it stems from someone he trusted, and  _that_ —

She looks away suddenly (and even without heat vision she can’t help but feel as though she’s burning somehow). He doesn’t say anything—doesn’t need to, really, because she knows what he would say, just by looking at him.

But her escape does not come so easily.

She meets Kaldur’s eyes next, and immediately the wound grows, as though someone is tearing it apart by the edges, bit by bit. Kaldur, Kaldur,  _Kaldur_ —her heart catches in her throat, because if there’s one thing she’s learned to hate, it’s to see Kaldur  _sad_ (there is no one that deserves it less, positively  _no one_ ). Her breath comes in hitches, because it dawns on her that she’s the one that did this to him and anyone that makes Kaldur feel this isn’t worth pity, and yet Kaldur has it in  _spades_.

"I’m sorry," he says to her (and he means it, oh god does he mean it), and he’s the one to look away first, as though the sight of her is too much to bear, and somehow that’s just as impossible to bear as Conner’s unflinching stare of disgust.

She wants to say something, wants Kaldur to listen, but her tongue is stuck and her lips are somehow glued shut ( _she has no right to speak, none at all_ ).

There’s no choice but to move on (and part of her wonders why she’s doing this, why she just doesn’t curl into herself and hope it all ends somehow someway).

M’gann—oh, hell,  _M’gann_ —is next, and this is the hardest yet, because  _everything_  about M’gann is laid bare for her to see: the anguish, the disappointment, the concern, the sorrow. Tears bud at the corner of her eyes, and Artemis wants nothing more than to take her friend ( _sister_ ) into her arms and tell her it will all be okay, but she  _can’t_ , because she’s the one that’s gone and hurt her, so what  _right_  does she have?

“ _Why_?” is all M’gann says, and  _wow_  if that doesn’t rip Artemis’ heart out completely—

 _I can’t do this I can’t you can torture me you can bruise me cut me rake me through_ coals _I don’t care just don’t make me do this_ please—

It’s not over, though, and the next two come together, just like they always have. Kid Flash and Robin, Wally and Dick, Dick and Wally and Robin and Kid Flash—

This,  _this_  might be the worst of it, because this is Dick, who always trusted her despite knowing everything and Wally whose trust she  _earned_  and  _nothing_  has ever tasted so sweet as having Wally’s trust, as knowing Dick’s name and the thought that she might have taken that and betrayed them—

She might actually vomit.

She knows exactly what they’re thinking, too, because she knows them far too well. Fists clenched, eyes averted, hunched shoulders—

She’s fucked up— _really_  fucked up.

"Why did I think you were different?" Dick says quietly, more to himself.

"I should never have trusted you," Wally mutters.

And suddenly all five of them are in front of her, and everything’s hitting her at once—

_Artemis—_

_—hey, can you hear me?_

_Where are you?_

_Artemis!_

"Artemis!"

In the deepest recesses of her mind, the part of her that stays conscious realizes there’s a hand on her shoulder.

She screams.

“ _Artemis, it’s okay!_  It’s me, I’m here—”

Her eyes fly open, and the first thing she sees is M’gann, and at first she shrinks away, backs straight into a tree (and it doesn’t burn and why is that?). “Oh, God,” she starts, “I’m sorry, so sorry, I—”

"Artemis!" M’gann exclaims, putting a hand on Artemis’ cheek to stay her. "Breathe—it’s okay, everything you’ve seen was an invention of your own mind."

Artemis blinks, and is suddenly aware of how quickly she’s breathing. “My mind?” Artemis asks.

M’gann nods. “You didn’t realize it at the time because… well, that’s just how the mind works.”

"Okay," Artemis says. "Okay." She takes a moment, closes her eyes (and sees nothing—whether it’s her or M’gann she doesn’t know, and she certainly doesn’t care).

"Artemis," M’gann says tentatively, "are you—"

She interrupts her friend by abruptly grabbing her shoulder and yanking her into a hug, letting herself breathe in the scent that clings to her friend’s hair, letting herself draw comfort from the fact she hasn’t gone and messed all of this up, that she still has friends like this.

M’gann doesn’t miss a beat, embracing her instantly, using as much of her body as she can with them being on the ground. “You’re okay, Artemis. Everything’s okay.”

Artemis finally pulls away after a few more seconds, meeting M’gann’s eyes. “Did—did you see?”

M’gann hesitates only a second. “Some,” she admits. “Enough to know…” M’gann bites her lip. “You have to know I don’t worry about it—not ever.”

Artemis looks away. “That’s part of what concerns me,” she mutters. “That you would never expect it.”

"Artemis, you can’t think—"

"I can, and I do," Artemis responds. She gestures around them. "That’s what this is, isn’t it? A manifestation of what keeps me up at night?"

M’gann nods. “From what I can tell, yes.”

Artemis considers M’gann. “You already dealt with your… issues, right? Since you’re here?”

M’gann looks away. “Yeah, I did.”

"You got yourself out on your own?"

M’gann nods. “I guess my consciousness kicked in, reminded me that none of it was real. Once that was done, it was easy to get back in control. I thought that would snap you all out of it as well, but Psimon—”

"Oh, my God, I even forgot it was him!" Artemis exclaims.

M’gann sighs. “Yeah, he can do that. It’s a very, very deep mental state, like a dream—deep enough you forget nothing is real.”

"Felt real enough," Artemis mutters.

"That’s the kicker," M’gann agrees. "Anyway. I didn’t know what to do at first. The first time something like this happened—in Bialya, you remember? He only attacked me and did the rest of the damage through the mental link, but this time he hit all of us directly, so your minds, while all linked through me, were treated as individuals rather than a single entity, so—"

"M’gann," Artemis breaks in (and normally she wouldn’t, but she’s been through a lot and she just wants this to end, so she’s going to nudge M’gann to the point).

"Oh, right, sorry! It just means each of us are going to have to get control of our own minds before we can fix this problem."

Something occurs to Artemis then. “Wait, when I first ‘woke up,’ I couldn’t feel anyone. Does that mean—”

"When Psimon attacked all of us, the mental link couldn’t quite hold up to it. Being spread between six people makes it weaker than if it were two, so think of it like a piece of string wrapped around a weight it can’t handle—it snapped." She pauses. "In retrospect, it’s probably better it happened that way, else we may have ended up sharing everything we were going through and exponentially magnifying the pain—there’s no telling what would have happened then."

 _If what I just went through is any indication_ , Artemis thinks to herself,  _we would have all gone completely insane._

After another moment, Artemis pushes herself to her feet. “So what now?”

M’gann floats up from the ground, casting her eyes around their surrounding area. “Well, first you need to get us out of here.”

Artemis stares. “Uh, how exactly do I do that?”

M’gann stares back for a second. “I mean—you just—” She stops herself, biting her lip. “You just have to think about it.”

"Yeah, I got that much, but I still don’t get how."

Realization washes over M’gann’s face. “Artemis, this forest is a manifestation of your fears and how they make you feel.”

"Like I’m in some weird mutated forest?"

"Trapped."

Artemis pauses at that. “So do I just… tell it to stop?”

"Put crudely, yes," M’gann answers. She smiles and floats down to take Artemis’ hand. "You can do it—I know you can."

Artemis takes in the trees; still just as overpowering as before. And she’s supposed to be able to get rid of them?

Then she remembers, how when she first came into this strange place (her mind, she has to remind herself—it’s her own mind she’s trapped in), she was able to make certain feelings go away by willing them. She thought it was a conscious choice to ignore them, but could it be she actually managed to manipulate her own subconscious?

So she closes her eyes, and thinks of a number of things. She imagines a physical wall being broken down, imagines chains being broken, of blood turning to water. She sees herself walking away from something (her father?), envisions shaking hands with Roy —

There’s a squeeze on her hand. “Keep going, Artemis.”

—she remembers all the time she put in with Green Arrow, and she lets the memories she has of the team flash in front of her—

"That’s it, just like that!"

So she focuses on the team, letting them fill her up, down to her every toe and every finger and every strand of hair, until it feels like she’s taken them into her very being. Warmth prickles over every part of her, on her skin and in her blood. Laughter echoes in her ears and she can practically taste M’gann’s cookies on her tongue, gooey and melting in her mouth.

She thinks of love and acceptance, of belonging in a place she found and chose for herself, of being accepted by those already there and in turn accepting others.

She thinks of her family.

"You did it!"

Artemis opens her eyes to find herself and M’gann standing in a place not unlike where she took them in Bialya—it’s full of light, with crystals and stones reflecting memories. Some are exclusively Artemis’, others belonging to M’gann, and handful to them both.

She’s about to say something about deja vu, but M’gann’s sudden embrace throws her off. “I knew you could do it,” she says.

Artemis smiles and holds M’gann tight for a few moments before pulling away. “This is your mind, isn’t it?” she asks, letting her eyes wander again.

M’gann nods. “A safe port of harbor, if you will.”

"So now we get the others?"

M’gann take an extra second to reply: “It’s up to you whether you come or not. You could stay here and wait, and I can get them, or you could come… it’s your decision.”

If they were a normal group of friends, Artemis would be worried about violating their privacy.

However, she’s quite certain the six of them obliterated that line some time ago, so she nods. “You know I’m coming.”

M’gann must have been on the same wavelength, if her smile is anything to go by.

* * *

They go after Conner first, because Artemis  _knows_  M’gann must be going crazy not knowing if he’s okay. They’re surrounded by pods, some empty but others filled with nightmarish creatures, some alien and others mutated animals. They’re in what has to be the biggest and draftiest basement  _ever_ , in what Artemis presumes is a Cadmus facility.

She feels very small, surrounded by these endless walls and facing a constant assault of strange noises and sounds.

Superboy is currently trapped in one of the pods (he was ‘asleep’ when they first found him), with no obvious way to get him out. When M’gann finally manages to wake him up, he goes ballistic, growling and fighting to get out of the pod. It takes a second for them to realize Conner’s subconscious lined the thing with kryptonite, which presents a challenge all its own.

M’gann communicates telepathically with him, leaving Artemis standing in silence. For the most part, she stays just behind M’gann. Where Conner is concerned, M’gann knows how to approach this situation better than Artemis does. Honestly, though, she’s glad she came—she’s not sure M’gann could have handled this by herself.

It’s hard, to stand there and watch one of her closest friends fight to reach the person she loves, to see her fighting tears. It’s hard to watch one of her good friends be trapped the way he is, unable to escape his own savage mind. While she knows that she wasn’t quite as violent as Conner is at the moment, it does chill her blood to think she was so totally removed from having any sense of herself.

A long time passes while M’gann rationalizes with Conner, but eventually he begins to calm down. His eyes gain a light that isn’t savage, but human. He stops fighting, and his entire body relaxes. It’s when he makes full eye contact with M’gann that she sees Conner for the first time, rather than the weapon.

The eerie green light from the kryptonite fades next, and then the pod finally breaks open with a hiss. M’gann chokes on a sob and embraces him. Artemis looks away, trying to give them a moment. 

When Conner clears her throat, she turns back. He meets her eyes and they share a nod of understanding. “Who next?” he asks M’gann.

M’gann, in turn, looks to Artemis.

She hesitates, torn for a second, before making a decision: “Robin.”

* * *

Immediately, Artemis knows she made the right choice.

Robin’s mind has put him in Arkham Asylum.

She casts a look over her shoulder to where Conner and M’gann stand, staring at the place. “Keep your guard up,” she says. “Whatever Dick’s subconscious—or Psimon, whichever—filled this place with, it won’t be pleasant. Arkham is the stuff of anyone’s nightmares.”

More than ever, Artemis wishes she had her bow. It wouldn’t actually do anything, but damn does it feel like suicide walking unarmed into Arkham, of all places.

Walking into the facility, Artemis immediately feels the dread and fear take hold. It takes a conscious effort not to let them run wild and wreak havoc (once was quite enough, thank you). The air hardly seems like air at all, tasting like dank water and leaving her lungs wanting more. An occasional water drip or creak of metal will set them on edge. As they get further in, the occasional scream or deranged laugh gets thrown in, and where Artemis was jumpy before, she’s now downright paranoid. She keeps bracing herself for the worst of it—Two-Face, Joker, Crocodile—but they never come.

She doesn’t know whether to be relieved or concerned, because she would have thought that would have something to do with his worst nightmare.

Artemis ultimately shrugs it off and, still on her guard, treks forward. Finally, they come to the end of the last corridor (at least, she’s pretty sure—she doesn’t know how true Dick was to the actual layout of the place, which is a maze to begin with). She opens the door and is met with blinding light (her eyes were adjusted for the darkness of Arkham, after all).

Once she’s capable of seeing again, she steps into the room, which isn’t actually a room at all. She takes a look around, then another.

Yes, they’re in a circus tent. Not dissimilar—in fact, it might be the same—to the one they traveled with last year. If she remembers correctly, Dick was raised here, so then why—?

But then her eyes land on him—he’s hunched over and looks so little (her eyes went right over him at first). Coming closer, she sees he’s almost completely curled into himself, hands covering his face.

_Is this what I looked like when M’gann found me?_

She hesitates for a second, unsure of what to do, but then she sees Dick’s shoulders shaking. The next second, she finally hears it:

"Please,  _please_ —I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—”

Realizing it’s coming from Robin (has she  _ever_  heard him this upset?), she falls to her knees next to him and reaches out to touch his shoulder.

He doesn’t even register she’s there. She looks around, trying to find the cause of his anguish, but the tent is empty but for the four of them.

"Robin," she says, shaking him a little. "Robin, it’s us—it’s Artemis."

"Artemis." She turns around to see M’gann pointing above them.

Artemis looks up. “Oh.”

There’s someone on the high-wire. Artemis can see them balancing, or attempting to balance, but the wire disappears underneath them, and the person is falling, falling—

Artemis recognizes a plume of bright blonde hair and realizes it’s supposed to be her. The body hits the ground a second later, and Dick’s sobbing becomes much more pronounced.

"—couldn’t save them, couldn’t do anything at all."

Artemis stares at her own body (except it isn’t her, she has to remind herself) with a horrible fascination, tracking the trickling blood from the crown of her head, through her hair and across her face and from her mouth to the ground below—

And then it changes, the features morphing and shifting to become someone else; the blonde becomes ginger and the dark skin becomes pale.

"Wally," Artemis whispers. But then it changes again, the body becoming Roy, and then Kaldur, until it’s just a constantly shifting form of people Robin knows.

Artemis wonders how many times he’s seen his friends fall, how many he’s seen broken on the ground. She looks back at Dick and this time she’s a little more aggressive: she grips his shoulder and pushes him, so he unfolds and can see her. His eyes go wide, and he makes a half-hearted attempt at scrabbling away.

"Robin, look at me," she says. "I’m okay, understand? Everything you’ve seen—it  _isn’t real_ , all right?”

His chest rises and falls very quickly, and his eyes don’t stop moving. They flicker from her to M’gann and Conner (from the corner of her eye she sees the body shift into Conner, and another with green skin materializes next to it) and then nothing at all, going out of focus, then coming back to look at her, still in disbelief.

"I’m not dead, Robin, and neither is Wally."

M’gann joins her on the ground and takes Robin’s hand in both of hers. “Conner and I are fine, too. You have to  _think_ , Robin. All of this is in your mind.”

Robin yanks his hand from M’gann’s and covers his eyes. “No, I’m dreaming, I’m dreaming, I messed up—my fault—”

Artemis can feel the tug on her heart, can feel tears trying to rise up, but she can’t get emotional just yet. “Robin, listen to me.” No good. “ _Dick_.”

That does it. Something in him goes still, and that’s when Artemis takes her chance. She puts a light hand on his shoulder. “Dick, it’s okay. We’re not going to leave you. You haven’t messed up, we’re all fine.” She grasps Dick’s wrist and pulls it away gently, slowly, and then the other, so his hands rests in hers. “Look at me, Dick. I’m here, right in front of you.”

She’s not sure what she’s expecting, but it certainly wasn’t Dick practically falling into her, arms wrapping around her and holding on like she might disappear at any second. She stiffens for only a second before she returns the embrace, squeezing him close.

More than ever, holding him like this, she remembers just how young Dick is, barely 15 as he is and still having seen and done so much—more than any child should have to.

That the rest of them aren’t much older doesn’t escape her, either.

Dick finally pulls back (Artemis keeps hold of his hands, though), the last of his sobs ebbing away. He looks at her for a long time, then M’gann, then Conner standing above them, and then back to Artemis. “I’m sorry,” he says.

"Don’t apologize," M’gann responds.

Dick smiles weakly. “You wanna tell me what’s going on?”

M’gann gives him the rundown, and as she does Artemis watches Dick turn into Robin. His shoulders straighten, the red flush on his face ebbs away, his brow furrows as he takes in new information.

She doesn’t let go of his hands, though. He doesn’t try to pull away.

M’gann finishes, and Robin looks around. “So I just have to think us out of here, is what you’re saying?”

"Put crudely," Artemis says, echoing M’gann’s words from before.

Robin nods, eyes closing. Artemis, remembering what M’gann did for her, gives his hands a slight squeeze.

"I’m right here, she murmurs.

Slowly at first, but then picking up as time passes, the tent falls away. M’gann lays a hand on Artemis shoulder and she feels the soft tugging sensation, taking them all back to M’gann’s ‘port of harbor.’ Artemis and Robin stand.

"I thought at this point," M’gann says, "we might want to split up, to get Wally and Kaldur quickly."

Artemis and Robin exchange looks. “Are we going to be able to go in without you?”

M’gann nods. “I’ve established a link with Wally, and since I’m linked with you two, so are you.” She frowns. “There is a slight risk he’ll reject you, but if he does you should just end up back here.”

Robin nods. “See you on the flip side, then.”

Artemis blinks.

They’re in Wally’s head now.

Artemis glances around; they’re in a downtown metro area, but the streets are completely empty. The silence is eerie; it presses in from every direction, like the very air is pushing her.

"This is Central, isn’t it?" she asks.

Robin nods. “Yeah, it is.”

"So do we start with Wally’s house?"

Robin hesitates. “Maybe,” he says. “But there’s a place on the way that wouldn’t be a bad idea, either.”

Artemis is about to ask where, but ultimately she figures she’ll find out eventually.

Robin pulls out his grappling gun.

"Wait," she starts to say, "I don’t have—" But then she reaches back, and her bow is there.

Robin smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “I didn’t have any equipment in my dream either.” He deploys the hook, gives it an experimental tug, then turns to her smiling a little wider. “Let’s fly, shall we?”

For Artemis, it’s a bit slower going (she’s not an acrobat, after all), but she never asks Robin to slow down. She’s not about to keep him from Wally any longer than necessary (pragmatism also kicks in—it’s better someone get to Wally as soon as possible, and it doesn’t need to both of them). Finally, after they’ve gone farther out—practically in the suburbs—she sees him hit the ground and take off running down a sidewalk, then take a left.

When she follows, she finally sees what he had in mind.

Wally’s high school.

Robin is waiting on the other side of the fence. She makes quick time scaling the chain-link, landing just next to him. “So what exactly were you thinking?” she asks.

"The track," he answers, already moving.

Despite their height difference, Artemis finds herself having to work to keep up with Robin. “You’ve already thought about this, haven’t you?” she asks.

He nods. “It could be a really dumb idea, but…” He shrugs. “We would have passed it anyway, so I figured it was worth looking.”

"You’ve known him longer," she says. "I’ll trust your hunch over mine any day."

They finally get behind the main school building.  _Football field, practice fields, blacktop—_

And then the track. Robin was on the mark—there’s one lone figure running there, and Artemis can make out the ginger hair from a mile away. There’s another thing that’s immediately obvious, too: he’s running at a human pace.

Artemis looks over at Robin as they keep moving forward; his frown speaks volumes. “You knew this is what he’d be trapped in, didn’t you?”

He sighs. “I had several ideas,” he says. “This is just one.”

When they finally reach him, Artemis feels a pang in her heart. It’s not just that Wally is running at a human pace—he’s _exhausted_. On top of that, his uniform—usually so bright, so seamless, is in ruined shreds. His skin is bruised and scratched, his hair matted into spikes with dry sweat. His goggles are cracked and scratched to such an extent, Artemis wonders if he can see through them at all.

She lifts a hand to her mouth.

"I have to admit I didn’t expect it to be this bad," Robin says quietly. "At least, I hoped it wouldn’t be."

They catch up to Wally easily—the difficult part comes when they try to physically stop him. Despite his obvious exhaustion (the rate his breathing is going, Artemis is genuinely worried for Wally’s actual physical well-being—this can’t be good for him), it takes both of them to drag him to the ground. They each hold an arm and a leg, getting more than a few hits for it. Artemis sees Robin’s pained expression and knows her own is mirroring his.

"KF," Robin says, pulling Wally’s goggles off and tossing them aside. "It’s us—your friends!"

Wally doesn’t acknowledge Robin—whether it’s because he didn’t hear or because he refuses to acknowledge him, she can’t be sure.

Artemis goes a step further and pulls gently at Wally’s cowl, working it off of his face so they can see him better (see the pain, the frustration, the despair—what was Wally running from, all this time?).

"Hey," she says quietly, putting a hand on his face. "Wally, look at me." When he still doesn’t seem to register her, she uses a little more force. "Look at my eyes and  _remember_.” She uses her other hand—hoping Wally doesn’t try to fight his way free—to pull her own mask off. “It’s us.”

She meets Robin’s eyes and, after a second, he gets the message, and pulls his own mask away.

"You have to snap out of it, Wally," she says. "This isn’t real. Whatever you’re running from, it isn’t real."

His breathing hitches, and she feels her own heart match it. But then it evens out, and it begins to slow.

"We’re right here, Walls," Dick says (and his mask is gone now, thrown to the side). "We’re not going to hurt you, we just want to help you get out of here."

Wally turns to look at Dick. Artemis does the same, and when she looks at Dick’s eyes, she wonders if she conveys as much concern and sadness that he does right now.

"Use your brain, Wally," he says. "I know it’s up there, even if no one else quite believes it."

_Rash._

_—not cut out to be a hero._

_Clown._

_You’ll never be—_

_Fool._

The voices play out around them, and Artemis realizes this must be what’s been eating away (literally, it seems) at Wally. She recognizes some of them, in the back of her mind, but she doesn’t care to place them just now. Their focus needs to be on Wally.

"Don’t listen to them," she says quietly, just next to his ear. "You’re smarter, you’re  _better_  than that.” She rubs long circles on Wally’s back and takes his hand in hers. “Fight it. You’ve proved them wrong time and again, you can do it now too.”

"She’s right," Dick says. "This team wouldn’t be the same without you, Wally." He squeezes Wally’s shoulder. "Come back to us, please."

Finally,  _finally_ —with Artemis’ head pressed into Wally’s shoulder, her arm wrapped around Wally’s back and entangled with Dick’s (her hand on Dick’s shoulder, giving him a squeeze every so often to keep them both steady), with all of their hands joined—Wally’s breathing starts to reach something resembling a resting pace.

Artemis lets out a breath of her own, relief washing over her.

Above them, the sun starts to peek out through the wash of gray, and she knows they’ve overcome the worst of it.

A few seconds later, a hoarse voice comes from between them. “You think you guys could get off?”

Artemis straightens up, a smiling breaking over her face. “Good to hear your voice, Wallman.”

There’s a weak chuckle in response, and the three of them start to extricate themselves. Dick is on his feet first, offering a hand to Wally. Artemis takes his other arm, putting it over her shoulders to get him off the ground. Dick mirrors her, and they share a smile painted with relief.

 _Hey, M’gann?_  Dick calls out.  _We’re good to go here._

The tug comes again—for the last time, Artemis hopes—and then they’re back with M’gann and Conner, who have Kaldur with them.

M’gann takes in the three of them and dashes over immediately. “Are you guys okay?”

"Better now," Wally answers, and the strength is already returning to his voice. "Just had a really long run, is all."

Artemis would elbow him if it weren’t for his current well-being.

 _He’ll get better faster now that he’s out of his own head, right?_ she asks M’gann directly.

_I’m not entirely sure, but I would think so._

Artemis breathes easier.

"How are you, Kaldur?" Dick asks.

Kaldur smiles, though it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “I will recover fine.” It’s not exactly the most reassuring answer, but it’s sincere.

Honestly, if anyone could walk away from this and be stronger for it, it’d be Kaldur.

"What now?" Wally asks, and now he starts to pull away from Artemis and Dick, until he only has a hand on Dick’s shoulder.

M’gann hesitates. “At this point, I think I can get us all back in our bodies.”

They all exchange glances.

"Do it," Kaldur says. "The sooner we do, the sooner we can resume the mission."

 _And the sooner we can get home_.

No one says it, but it’s there.

M’gann nods, and then her eyes go green.

The next thing Artemis is aware of is the rope binding her hands and feet. She opens her eyes to a dark storeroom, musty and damp. The rustling surrounding her, she assumes, is her teammates also waking up.

"Everyone okay?" she asks.

She hears the snapping of metal—they must have attempted to cuff Superboy, she realizes—followed by a pleased: “Never better.”

"They thought rope was going to hold us?" Wally asks.

"I don’t think Psimon expected us to break free on our own," M’gann answers.

As Conner undoes her ropes, Artemis smirks and says: “You think he would have learned from last time.”

"Suits me just fine," Robin says (she can  _hear_ him smiling). “It just means they won’t be expecting us.”

"And that is where we find our strength," Kaldur adds. He pulls out his water blades and lets their light ( _his_  light) illuminate the room.

Looking around, Artemis realizes there’s no other group of people she’d rather have with her right now.

"Do we have a plan?" M’gann asks.

Wally grins. “I know I’m not the best person to answer, but I can’t be the only one thinking what I’m thinking right now.”

Robin pulls out a batarang. “If it’s that nothing could compare to what we just did, then, dude—I’m all over it.”

Kaldur matches their grins, and at that point it’s too infectious for Artemis not to join in. “My friends,” Kaldur says, “today, we’re on the same wavelength.”


End file.
